


Wide Awake Dreaming

by Haywire



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 02:30:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/717834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haywire/pseuds/Haywire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Daydreaming had been nigh upon impossible after everything she and Cobb had been through in their careers, but the arrival of Phillipa had brought some of that magic back into her life, and who was she to deny it?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wide Awake Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilredridinghood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilredridinghood/gifts).



> Just a little ficlet idea that popped into my head when reviewing requests for the challenge which I turned into a treat. :) Set after Phillipa's birth but before James's, in what I took to be a simpler time in Mal and Cobb's lives.

"I wonder what you're dreaming about right at this instant." Mal mused aloud in a faint whisper.

She leaned over, gently resting her arms along the railing surrounding her daughter's crib as she peered down inside. Part of the new mother longed to reach out, to touch her warm forehead and stroke her soft wisps of hair, but Mal was not that new of a mother to recklessly interfere with a sleeping infant for fear of waking her.

No, sleep was a precious commodity as of late; for both little Phillipa, and for her husband, who was getting some much needed rest in the next room. With her self-imposed maternity leave - being self employed as they were she didn't necessarily have to stop working but chose to do so - Cobb had been performing extractions with the rest of his team without her assistance, and he'd returned from some far off corner of the world on a red eye just a scant few hours earlier. Someone had to continue to work, after all; the bills didn't stop just because they had a child, in fact their expenses had increased if anything.

Mal would sleep soon too, she hoped, and she stifled a yawn at the very thought, but for the moment she was too busy admiring her first born child. Phillipa's little legs were kicking back and forth together, moving as she stretched ever so slightly in her slumber.

_Are you running, I wonder?_ she thought. _From what? Or to something, perhaps, or some one. Through fields of flowers in the sun, with your father and I._ Mal smiled, yawning once again. _What a pleasant idea, dreaming of running before you can even walk._

As if sensing her mother's thoughts, Phillipa rolled over onto her side, now directly facing her mother with her tiny eyes closed. Her pink cheeks huffed in and out as she breathed easily, her impossibly tiny nose wrinkling ever so slightly on every other breath.

_That face, oh, that beautiful face._ Mal beamed as she gazed upon her daughter. _The look on your father's face when his eyes first saw you, that is a moment I shall never forget, nor shall he. Forever wrapped around your little finger he is, I could see that right from the start._ she thought with an inaudible chuckle. She somehow knew that Phillipa would grow to be a daddy's girl, and that Cobb would indulge her every wish, no two ways about it.

Thoughts of the first day of school, of graduations, of proms, and of potential future marriages drifted in and out of Mal's mind. She knew she ought to sleep, _had_ to sleep if she wanted to be anywhere near functional in the morning, and yet. And yet. Daydreaming had been nigh upon impossible after everything she and Cobb had been through in their careers, but the arrival of Phillipa had brought some of that magic back into her life, and who was she to deny it?

Curling up in a nearby rocking chair, Mal reluctantly leaned back and watched her daughter from afar, fighting to keep her eyes open. Sleep could wait, after all, when she was already living in a dream all the time these days.


End file.
